For the first time that I can remember, I've seen deer on every hunt this season, despite not using feeders (at the landowner's request). I've gone weeks on past leases watching a feeder and never saw a deer. The difference between those and my current lease is the frequent use of ATV's, target practicing, and the sounds of other hunter activities. I've also got photos of more bucks than ever before after never getting a photo of a single buck during the off season. It's all the proof I need to know that when you keep things quiet and always walk to your stand, deer throughout the area will recognize the safest place to go once all the shooting starts. And given you're healthy enough to do so, your mind and body will appreciate the exercise.

Here's a buck selfie thrown in for a little humor. Hope he comes back next year.

Let me also add that if you're on a lease where there's a lot of noise and racket on weekends, studies have shown that hunting pressure will often send deer into hiding just a short distance away. If you can, take time off to hunt during the middle of the week, keep things quiet around camp, and walk to your stand, even if it's some distance. This is especially true late in the season when most everyone else has given up and starting watching bowl games. "The more you walk, the more you see."

Interesting....I ride 4 wheelers, shoot year-round, have 4 kids running around screaming and yelling, hop on my mower every other weekend and always see plenty of deer.

I saw lots of deer on my place when I first got it. I then let somebody stay on the place for a while. I still saw deer but no big ones. He claimed to see big deer all the time even after they had loud parties and crap. The season after he left I started seeing big deer again and got the a pretty good one last year. Of course the only traffic was filling feeders and putting in food plots.

My experience is that does continue to come to feeders even with lots of activity, but bucks are a different story. I see more bucks late week, Thursday and Friday morning, than I do on weekends or just after when there has been lots of pressure. I used to drive in and walk the last couple of hundred yards, but started walking a lot more a few years ago and seems to pay off.

A study made by a grad student on the East Coast (South Carolina if my memory is correct) found that Thursday is the best day of the week to hunt. The purpose of his study was to measure the impact of hunter pressure on radio-collared deer and especially bucks. He found that it took about three days for an area around a stand to "recover" after being hunted, this meaning the smell of humans to dissipate and for bucks to feel comfortable entering the area again.

It’s simple: Deer respond negatively to hunting pressure. Their avoidance of heavily hunted areas is undeniable, as my graduate-level research at Auburn University documented. But exactly how long does it take for a specific stand site to “recover” from a hunter’s presence?

However, if the stand was hunted the previous day, bucks appeared to respond immediately and displayed avoidance behavior. This avoidance lasted on average for three days. By the fourth and fifth days following a hunting event, the response was no longer significantly different from neutral, and thus deer were no longer considered to be avoiding the hunted stand – though they still were not “attracted” to the site as they were before the stand was hunted.

Link

Different in different places to me. Backyard and city deer etc are conditioned to high traffic noise and people activity and presence. Drove past several mature bucks in a new braunfels/garden ridge this weekend mid day on the side of the road with people all over they paid no mind. Drive through our hunting property mid day in a truck and you likely just reduced the amount of deer your going to see.

I agree keeping quiet helps you see mature bucks. I think does care less about the noise. They always come to feed.

Another of the "no absolutes work everywhere" but there is something to be said of being quiet and not yeehaw-ing all over during hunting season.

On my place, we had some pressure from family the first year we had a built house, that we put the kybosh to and hurt family relations because of it. Almost killed the family unit. Despite them all agreeing initially to the rules. Once a house was built they seemed to think all the rules went out the window and it created some serious drama for one hunting season before it came to a head and that was it. Cut to the next year when family was not a factor and we saw all kinds of deer, bigger ones, and better ones.

Our rules are no joy riding in any vehicles from a month before and thru the deer season. Only time you can walk around is if you are hunting and then it is minimized as much as possible to get where you need to be or find a down deer. One exception is we can walk down to the lake and back to the house. Minimizing noise as much as possible.

Pretty simple. I still burn a fire at the house, we still turn on the tv and watch football or whatever during the day and night. I still fill feeders, I will run some road corn from my kawasaki mule, but limiting noise and intrusion really does work well to create a sanctuary the deer will come to enjoy living or dying in.

After I hunted on Sunday morning, I got out of the stand around 10:30. Went back and changed clothes. Rode the SxS all over the property checking cameras and feeders. At the second feeder, about 1 minute after I turned off the SxS a buck walked with 25 yards of me, I even got a video of it. Driving by the last food plot, I drove by two bucks who just watched me drive by at no more than 50-60 yards and never ran off. Crazy.

I was amazed the weekend before last, I was hunting in a tree and deer were around me but it was past legal shooting time and needed to get down. I knew my son was out of his stand so I told him to just come pick me up, I didn't hear the diesel mule driving up until it was super close and then only once it entered the immediate area did the deer even run off. I wonder sometimes if they just don't know what to think of what we do.

While I agree we all have good examples of the above, the general rule of being quiet and not driving around is going to serve one a lot more than going nutz on a place and making a racket. I dirve around as I need to, check/fill feeders, do minor work, etc during deer season. I tend to do that in the middle of the day when most deer are bedded down and don't care as much. I will continue that, as Doc did at the end of my hunts rather than the beginning of the hunt sessions.

The key difference in keeping it quiet and hunting a stand less often can be seeing that one buck that you would have otherwise never known was in the area. This also points to why some of the best bucks are often killed by hunters sitting in new stand sites for the very first time. Few would argue they don't grow old being stupid.

We shoot far more does than bucks. Our warry deer are mature does the bucks are a bunch of dummies. Usually when they do come out it’s like shooting a hog at a trough.

I think it is different in different locations and even in the same location some deer are just more wary.
Hell, I can take you to a place today and literally drive up to the stand feeding as we come in and then go feed 2 or 3 other senderos and turn around and come back to the stand and park literally 75' behind it.
There will be multiple mature bucks out in the roads before you can get set up.
On the same place a friend had a big 10 point on camera at a stand that came in to the corn feeder morning and evening each and every day for over 2 weeks straight.
When he went to hunt the deer the first weekend he could, that deer never showed his face one time.
The next weekend he parked about 1/2 mile away and walked in well before the break of day started and 5 minutes after the feeder went off he had a B&C 10 point on the ground.

And, before any questions on it come up....it is a 6k acre low fence pasture.

Some deer are just smarter than others when it comes to ANYTHING different going on in their backyard!

Let's be honest. If deer stand and watch you drive up to fill a feeder, who's hunting who?

You may still see plenty of deer, I get it. I`ve always heard that argument, but you will never really know what bucks and how many deer you didn`t see when activities like this go on.

I am in total agreement with being still and quite.
Also, I love to hunt where there are no feeders.
Every lease I have ever been on I look for the roughest most out of the way place. Ones that are not easily accessible except by foot.
I build me a ground blind and deck it out with all kinds of naturally occurring camo. I will build
A shooting rest and then I just sit and wait. While most the guys on the leases I have been on
see many more deer than me coming to their feeders I have year in and year out harvested the best deer on the leases
I have been blessed to hunt on. I am convinced that the big boys stay away from the high traffic areas and keep to them selves most of the season.
When the hunting pressure picks up I feel those quiet out of the way places are the places I want to be.
The only downside to this, is getting the deer after harvesting to a place where I can get it to my truck!
To each his own though. This is how I prefer to hunt. I will never judge anyone for hunting the way they want to.

Yeah, what the heck do I know.

totally depends on where you are hunting IMO - I have hunted 60 years all over Texas and the deer are different depending on where they are

Hill Country? You are dead on - have to be stealth and quiet for sure

East Texas? Very spooky deer

South Texas? way more use to noise and movement - I have hunted 15 years on a ranch where the more noise you make while feeding corn it will attract more deer -

There will always be those who enjoy the relative ease in shooting farm raised deer. Thankfully, there are still those who measure the value in taking a nice buck by the level of difficulty required to overcome the beast.

Not sure who you are talking to Dan-O but I only hunt low fence properties. No canned hunt for me…ever. Carry on with your plethora of post after post after post.

Assuming you were referring to me since your post was following mine.

I do not hunt HF - no "farm raised deer" - in South Texas noise in the pasture is normal - oil field traffic, etc. The deer are not tame - they are just use to noise so they do not disappear when there is noise in the pasture.

I have hunted the "level of difficulty" that you have no clue about. Hours and days in a stand waiting to see the buck I am after - so please do not generalize -

Yeah, what the heck do I know.



LOL yeah me either - what the heck do I know???

If the shoe fits, buy a pair in every color.

I’ve hunted it both ways too. Places where you really had to sneak into it, and other places where I would rattle around corn in a bucket as loud as I could going to the stand. I absolutely wouldn’t look down my nose those are anybody that chose the latter method.